Part 2 …. A little more from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew – my first visit in 2016 – more Witch Hazels, decorative fruit and bark – and a horrid hawthorn

King William’s Temple with Hamamelis x intermedia

Back to Kew (well in fact the final selection of photos from my first visit in 2016, at the end of last week) and its Witch Hazels all the way … Hamamelis x intermedia Vesna gets us going –

and the more modest Hamamelis virginiana –

Hamamelis x intermedia Carmine Red (below) just getting going –

and Hamamelis x intermedia, no cultivar but nothing plain about this specimen –

Hamamelis x intermedia Primavera (below)

Hamamelis x intermedia Diane (below)

Which I think brings us to the last of the Witch Hazels – in this little tour. I’m keen to get back to RHS Wisley and to take in The Savill Garden within Windsor Great Park – perhaps Nymans too – for more glorious specimens and different cultivars.

Parrotia persica (above) just coming into bloom – you may remember that it’s a relation to the witch hazels.

There’s another Parrotia – a Pendula variety – in a neighbourly group of Witch Hazels and mounds of Hellebores just by –

Rosa palustris – the Swamp Rose – as I manouvre back to the Victoria Gate complex, shop, tiny plant centre and then out … past a little bark, first –

Pinus nigra subsp lauricio (foreground) with Carpinus betulus Fastigiatia, multi-stemmed, behind.

The bark of this Corsican native –

The fresh buds of the Carpinus – (above and below)

Morus nigra – the black mulberry – with distinctive bark and lichen-clad branches (above and above)

Crataegus monogyna Horrida – below

The bark of the London Plane …

… and that’s it, for this visit at least. I’m bound to be back in the next couple of weeks so there will be more. Other gardens too, if the weather allows. Fret not!

Before I leave off, I’ve just RSVP’d to my nieces’ Wedding Invitation which takes place near Shrewsbury at the end of April – there were several gardens on my 2015 wish list in these environs, so I ought to make plans to take in any likely candidates – Wollerton Old Hall should be an absolute must – and where else?

Plans to make, hurrah!